1. Mob Violence is a Crime Whatever the Motive, States Should Crack Down: Supreme Court
Taking serious note of lynchings and mob violence, the Supreme Court on Tuesday put the onus on the states to check such incidents. Saying it would “not confine these incidents to any particular motive”, the court said “this is mob violence, which is a crime”.
“We do not want lynchings. We do not want mob violence. We want to protect victims,” said a bench of Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud.
The court was hearing a batch of petitions seeking its directions for curbing violence by cow vigilantes.
“Whoever they are, they can’t take the law into their hands. These kinds of incidents cannot occur. It can’t be accepted in the remotest sense,” said the CJI.
(Source: The Indian Express)
2. SC Set to Deliver Verdict on Delhi Govt-Centre Tussle Today
A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra will pronounce its verdict on the state government’s tussle with the Centre over administrative control and governance of the national capital at 10:30 am on Wednesday.
On 6 December last year, the Supreme Court reserved its verdict on appeals filed by the Arvind Kejriwal government against a Delhi high court judgment declaring the lieutenant governor (LG) as the sole administrator of the capital. Hearing in the matter continued for a month before it was finally wrapped up.
A galaxy of senior advocates — including former additional solicitor general Indira Jaising, Congress leader P Chidambaram and former solicitor general Gopal Subramanium – argued on the Delhi government’s behalf. The Centre, however, firmly rejected the claim that an elected government should have executive power over the national capital.
(Source: Hindustan Times)
3. Government Tells Whatsapp to Act, Will Meet Social Media Platforms
In the wake of recent mob violence across the country fuelled by rumours of child lifters on social media platforms like WhatsApp, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has sent a letter to WhatsApp senior management, urging action against misinformation circulating on its platform in India.
The initiative — which comes as IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad takes notice of the recent spate of lynchings — has conveyed the Government’s “deep disapproval” to WhatsApp and called for “necessary remedial measures” and “immediate action” to stem the flow of misinformation.
Senior officials who sent the letter specified no deadline for a WhatsApp.
(Source: The Indian Express)
4. Three Mansarovar Yatris Dead, 1,500 Stranded
Three Indian pilgrims were reported dead and over 1,500 stranded in Nepal and Tibet on their way to Kailash Mansarovar as incessant bad weather disrupted the pilgrimage to the Himalayan lake.
The Indian embassy in Kathmandu is monitoring the situation along the Nepalganj-Simikot-Hilsa route of Kailash Mansarovar Yatra via Nepal while heavy rains made it difficult to operate evacuation flights.
Foreign minister Sushma Swaraj confirmed that about 525 pilgrims were stranded in Simikot, 550 in Hilsa and another 500 more on the Tibet side. “We have requested the government of Nepal for army helicopters to evacuate stranded Indian nationals,” Swaraj said on Twitter.
Official sources said the embassy in Kathmandu was able to evacuate about 150 pilgrims from Hilsa and Simikot.
(Source: The Times of India)
5. Mumbai Overbridge Collapse Injures 5
Barely nine months after the Elphinstone Road stampede that killed 23 people, a portion of the 40-year-old Gokhale Road overbridge in Andheri crashed on to railway platforms number 8 and 9 Tuesday morning amid heavy rain across the city. Five persons were injured, three of whom — including a woman — were on the bridge, and two on the platform below.
While the woman, Asmita Katkar (35) was critical and battling for life at a hospital, a chartered accountant, Manoj Mehta (52) suffered injuries to his spine and had to undergo surgery at Nanavati Hospital. The other three injured were at Cooper Hospital and were out of danger.
It was luck that prevented loss of life despite Western Railway being a very busy suburban corridor with a less-than-four-minute train frequency.
(Source: The Times of India)
6. Delhi Cricket Polls May Be Invalidated, Violations Under Scrutiny: Vinod Rai
A day after television news channel owner Rajat Sharma’s panel swept the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) polls, chairman of the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA), Vinod Rai, Tuesday warned that the election results could be annulled because of ethical and constitutional inadequacies.
Rai told The Indian Express, “Since these DDCA elections took place without a constitution that is endorsed by the Supreme Court, it can get annulled at a later date.” The former CAG, along with former India cricketer Diana Eduljee, was appointed by the SC to implement the Justice RM Lodha recommendations. He also pointed to the DDCA’s failure in putting in place the Supreme Court-advocated checks and balances to avert possible conflict of interest situations.
(Source: The Indian Express)
7. Cops Plan to Go for Psychological Autopsy to Clear Burari Mystery
The Crime Branch sought the informal opinion of mental health experts, who suggested that the Bhatia family of Burari could have been suffering from a shared psychotic disorder and followed the delusionary bidding of their leader to kill themselves on Sunday. The cops now plan to take recourse to the relatively new investigation technique of psychological autopsy, also used in the Sunanda Pushkar and Arushi Talwar cases.
The cops have been in touch with doctors at Vidya Sagar Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences to understand the phenomenon of mass suicides. According to experts, shared disorder starts with one or more persons. “In this case, Lalit Bhatia was hallucinating about his deceased father, according to the notings in a diary found in the house,” an officer revealed. “His wife, Tina, may then have developed this disorder, after which the couple probably drove everyone else in the family to take the extreme step.”
Police officers quoted relatives and neighbours as saying that Lalit, the third son, had of late started mimicking his father’s speech patterns.
(Source: The Times of India)
8. Congress Fighting for Existence, Opposition United by Hatred for Me: PM Modi
The Congress is fighting a battle for its existence, a shared hatred for him is the sole glue in the “united” opposition, and the next election will be a choice between governance and development on one side and chaos on the other, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in an interview to Swarajya magazine.
He said a Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) type “non-ideological and opportunistic coalition” was “the best guarantee for chaos” and spoke about the internal contradictions within the proposed grand alliance to suggest that “such instability adversely impacts the growth trajectory of our nation”.
The opposition alliances are not motivated by national good, but they are about personal survival and power politics, the prime minister said. “They have no agenda except to remove Modi,” he said in the interview.
(Source: Hindustan Times)
9. Clarify Stand on Quota or Lose Funding, Scheduled Castes Panel Chief Tells AMU
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and chairperson of the national commission for scheduled castes, Ram Shankar Katheria, on Tuesday met the administrators of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) to renew the demand for implementing caste-based quotas in the institution, adding to the growing chorus of such calls.
AMU does not reserve seats for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes as all educational institutions supported by the University Grants Commission are expected to.
Katheria, who represents Agra in Parliament, said he would write to the Ministry of Human Resource Development to review the grants being given to the university that has “refused to implement quotas” and also raise the issue with the national commission for minorities.
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(Source: Hindustan Times)
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